


Meta: Consent and Vessel Decay

by DefilerWyrmMeta (Defiler_Wyrm)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Consent Issues, Demon Blood, Dubious Consent, Gen, Manipulation, Meta, Metafiction, Season/Series 09, Vessel Consent Issues, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defiler_Wyrm/pseuds/DefilerWyrmMeta
Summary: A ~2013 meta on whether or not informed consent or lack thereof may affect vessel decay in SPN's angels.





	Meta: Consent and Vessel Decay

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this was written before the reveal that [SPOILERS] Ezekiel was really Gadreel. This is archived from Tumblr and has not been edited.

>    **Anonymous asked:** (1) Was it a long time for Lucifer's vessel to decay? He had permission from Nick, but the vessel decayed over time. Did it take a long time or did it start quickly? I think that's why Hael's vessel was decaying more quickly. I don't think the angels are even asking for permission anymore. They're floating in the wavelengths possessing like Demons (which is against their nature). That's why Ezekiel can be in Sam for awhile, but Hael could not. Sam gave him (questionable) consent."
> 
> (2) I think God put a safety lock on his angels to need consent and if they don’t get it, they burn out of their vessels. (He must have been in his ‘vengeful God’ phase back then. This keeps them from acting completely like Demons. Also I think the humans could always eject Angels, but I think there is a certain way to do. The angels withheld that information from their vessels, so they couldn’t do it. Maybe they need to say specific words or something like “You do not have my consent.”

It took a few months for it to get bad. Lucifer was freed around May 2009 and it’s not til November of that year we see him starting to break down in his vessel. The decay seems to accelerate over time. By the time Sam was ready to say Yes nearly a year later, Nick’s body was ashen as a corpse and covered in lesions that were basically radiation burn from the inside. I would hazard to guess he didn’t have to drink that much demon blood at first to maintain his vessel, but as time wore on it became less effective. I theorise (based on Nick’s vessel decay and the psychological trauma inflicted on a seraph’s vessel vs an archangel’s) that the more powerful the angel, the more precisely the human’s subcellular vibrations must match the angel’s wave patterns.

In the case of Lucifer and Nick the angel had to use demon blood (disturbing reminder: that’s really  _human_  blood corrupted by demonic possession) as a preservative, a buffer to maintain the body’s structure as the angel’s para-EM radiant body and Grace bashed and tore against it like a subatomic chainsaw. This is probably mostly to do with the corruptive damage it had suffered in Hell, but it did work, at least for a while. It’s also something other angels would doubtless never think to do (I can’t imagine Lucifer was very damned thrilled with it, either). There might already be a lot of angels having to settle for lesser vessels – as I mentioned on [the PH pilot](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dz8dZWZVnyNk&t=NTU1YjQ3NDMxMjczYmUyNzU5YTNhOWM1MDJiZDZjODQ2OWQ3NGNhNywxU3lpYzdKeg%3D%3D&b=t%3AZYWmCmvJm8yYLSyMpAV2Jg&p=http%3A%2F%2Fdefilerwyrm.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F64714990135%2F1-was-it-a-long-time-for-lucifers-vessel-to&m=1), there may well be angels whose vessel bloodlines have died out entirely, leaving no true vessel available – and that means they’re going to burn through them in a hurry. Thus, yes, Hael was experiencing vessel decay for the same reason Lucifer was: the problem is compatibility, not consent.

Even though it was thoroughly manipulative, Ezekiel did expressly ask Sam to be let inside. It just wasn’t clear about what exactly it was asking at the time – by no means did it receive informed consent. Yet the angels of Supernatural have been shown to use such tactics (manipulation, torture, coercion, glaring omission of what vesseldom entails) from the start; even Castiel was guilty of this the first time it came to Jimmy Novak (though [as I’ve demonstrated here](http://defilerwyrm.tumblr.com/post/62190682294/hi-i-havent-been-on-your-blog-in-a-while-so-i-dont) the second Yes was certainly informed consent). In fact the notable exception to this was Lucifer with Sam; the archangel not only did not pressure Sam to say Yes but asked, repeatedly, if he was sure about his decision. It’s absolutely reasonable to believe that most angels (especially in their generally panicked state) will continue the trend of telling their prospective vessels that they’ve been chosen to serve God and blah blah righteous glory etc ad nauseum and that the humans, having forgotten that the Bible/Torah describes being called to do God’s bidding equals ridiculous suffering with little to no appreciable reward, will jump at the chance to serve Heaven.

Back to Ezekiel, though, pay attention to the dialogue.

> DEAN!EZEKIEL: You have to fight this! I can fix this, okay? But  **not if you shut me out.**  [to DEATH] It’s not his time.
> 
> DEATH: That’s for Sam to decide.
> 
> DEAN!EZEKIEL: Sam, listen to me. I made you a promise in that church. You and me, come whatever. Well, hell, if this ain’t whatever… But **you got to let me in** **, man.**  You got to let me help. There ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.
> 
> SAM looks at DEATH, then back to DEAN!EZEKIEL.
> 
> SAM: What do I do?
> 
> DEAN!EZEKIEL:  **Is that a yes?**
> 
> SAM looks at DEATH again and back to DEAN!EZEKIEL.
> 
> SAM: Yes.

**Let me in. Is that a yes?**

Right there, Ezekiel explicitly – at least explicitly enough for its own purposes – asked to be allowed inside of Sam and received a clear affirmative. The consent is shaky as Hell, even by the angel’s own admission.

Now what’s the real difference between Hael and Sam? Right back to the matter of compatibility: right down to his atoms, Sam is designed to contain one of the most powerful angels in the world, while the young woman Hael inhabited could barely hold a mal’ach – or perhaps Hael was a higher order of angel, but then it’s still a matter of the girl not being well-suited enough to angelic possession. Extent of consent has demonstrably had nothing to do with it. Castiel never had that problem and, again, it didn’t exactly give full disclosure to Jimmy Novak the first time around. Even Michael had coerced assent at best from both John and Adam and they didn’t start breaking down that quickly, because they were so genetically (ergo structurally) similar to its true vessel.

If the angels had an option of taking vessels without consent, the entirety of season five would be completely moot, because Michael would have just grabbed itself a Dean-suit and whomped up on Lucifer right off the bat. Ezekiel’s manipulations would have been entirely unnecessary because it could have taken over Sam’s body without consulting either of the Winchesters at all. A reasonable assumption here is that angels require consent because, dicks though they may be, they are still literally divine beings and to take control of a sentient being’s body without some kind of agreement is an evil act no matter how you slice it. They are  _physically incapable_  of taking a vessel without asking to be let in (even if it’s equivocal) and receiving a definite yes in response to that request (ie, the angel can’t just ask “Hey is it windy out today?” and if the human says “Yes” the angel gets to go “Ha-ha you said yes, body’s mine now, no takebacks!”).

Further evidence that vessel decay and consent are unrelated is the fact that Lucifer actually told Nick, in no uncertain terms, that it was going to “take control of [his] mind and [his] body” and that it wasn’t gonna be fun. Despite knowing, to some extent, what he was in for, his body still broke down.

As far as the eject button goes I think the implication is that it’s a combination of the extra-dubious consent (ie, Sam was tricked into saying Yes whereas most other instances have had the angel announcing itself, make its case by way of giving some degree of explanation, and then asking to be let in) and Ezekiel being pretty badly injured, ergo weakened, by the Fall. Even Adam was groomed by Zachariah into believing that saying Yes to Michael was the way to go; but in the end he was trapped in the Green Room after finding out that he’d been manipulated and used, and  _still_  wound up somehow coerced into a Yes. Despite this, he was unable to eject Michael. This indicates that it’s initial consent (or rather lack thereof) is the issue rather than continuing consent. The actual ejection is probably nothing more complex than “THIS ISN’T WHAT I AGREED TO YOU SHIT” when the angel’s weak enough to get shaken off – not any specific wording, just the assertion of lack of consent strong enough to clash with the angel’s metaphysical biology.

There’s also, of course, the possibility that Ezekiel is blowing smoke up Dean’s ass.


End file.
